


rays of the sun burn, burn, burn- (help us)

by DarkColdSummer



Series: fortune, misfortune, and everything in-between [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Galra Keith (Voltron), Gen, Half-Galra Keith (Voltron), Hurt Keith (Voltron), Implied/Referenced Character Death, In Hindsight, Likely OOC Characters, Protective Shiro (Voltron), Shiro (Voltron) is a Mess, Zombie Apocalypse, fusing aus with canonverse shenanigans, hey hey hey you know what i like?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:00:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25836901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkColdSummer/pseuds/DarkColdSummer
Summary: Shiro is lucky. Probably. It seems that way, at least, compared to everyone else who’s either dead or pretty much a zombie. Shiro is lucky because he hates the sun disturbing his sleep and makes sure it doesn’t, drawing the curtains and blocking out the rays of the sun. He is lucky.Keith likes the heat, likes sleeping with the hot sun above him, likes laying in bed, basking in the warmth of the sun. Keith likes it when the sun is out, likes turning up the heat and putting himself in the warmest areas of the room.Keith is not as lucky.(aka, i had a version of this as a nightmare, cried for an hour, and then wrote + edited this in 2 days)
Relationships: Keith & Shiro (Voltron)
Series: fortune, misfortune, and everything in-between [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1883455
Comments: 2
Kudos: 38





	rays of the sun burn, burn, burn- (help us)

**Author's Note:**

> I didn’t want to write this. I have an assignment due in two days that I haven’t started. Take it. It’s short and terrible.

It starts like this:

Shiro wakes up in the morning, curtains drawn and sun surprisingly glaring despite it. His phone is actually surprisingly quiet, seeing how it’s, like, noon or something. Normally, by this time, it’d be blowing up, if not thanks to Matt, then due to Adam’s attempts at reconcilation.

It’s also a school day, Shiro realises with a start, jolting into a seated position. It’s to the surprise of literally no one that he slept through his alarm - the amount of times he rushed into class, just barely avoiding being late is uncountable - but it’s definitely a surprise that early-bird Keith let him sleep through it, even if Shiro technically doesn’t have lessons to teach this early.

He gets out of his room. “Keith?” And then louder, when his brother doesn’t respond. “Keith?!”

“‘m room,” he hears, Keith’s voice weak and not at all like his brother in any reality.

He goes into Keith’s room.

“Keith!” Shiro gasps, moving to support his brother. “What happened to you?”

Keith looks terrible, like he’d been run through with a sword thrice, then left to fend for his own in ice-cold Antarctica. He’s shaking, and Shiro moves in to tuck him into an embrace.

“Sun, kaboom, ‘dunno what it’s called, you’re the Astronomy major. You finished your studies at the Garrison. You’ve been to space! The first time I was on the floor,” Keith grunts out and Shiro lets out a shaky, tear-stained laugh because _of course_ Keith was on the floor. “The noise woke me up, then the second kaboom hit me.” Keith gives him a look. “Can’t believe you slept through both of them.”

“You know I sleep through lots of things,” Shiro shoots back, voice trembling. It’s a weak response and they both know it but sue him, Keith is… Shiro doesn’t know the specifics, forgive him for being a little muddled. “How can I help?”

“It hurts,” Keith mumbles into his shoulder. “Really hurts.”

“Yeah,” Shiro breathes, clutching tighter then thinking better of it. “So tell me how I can help, yeah?”

“’s no help,” Keith says, steadying himself as he pulls away. “Other people already turned.”

“Turned?” Shiro echoes, confused but no less concerned. “What do you mean turned?”

“Zombie-fied,” Keith chuckles, voice weak and body still trembling. He tilts his head towards his phone, lifting his wrist a little and gesturing slightly. “Look.”

Shiro fixes his brother with a worried look, then picks up his phone. He’s right, most major news outlets have already released one sort of announcement or another, pretty much declaring a zombie apocalypse brought on by some form of solar radiation or something.

“And?” Shiro demands, concern rising even further, even higher than before. “Tell me what I can do to help.”

Keith smiles at him. Shiro does not like the way he’s smiling - it’s sad and wary and desperate and all in all a terrible look on his brother. “What do all of those apocalyptic stories do when someone starts turning into a zombie?” His head lolls. “It hurts, ‘kashi.”

Shiro knows. He knows what his brother is asking of him. “No,” he insists. “I- I can call for an ambulance or something-“

“Already tried,” Keith mutters. “No one wants to help, ‘specially not with the way this is going.”

Shiro doesn’t listen, already fumbling with his phone, dialling for emergency services. The moment his call is answered, the words tumble out of his mouth. “Hi my brother is dying because of solar flares.”

“Sorry sir,” comes the response. “We are unequipped to deal with this.” His call is hung up on.

“No,” he breathes. “No!” He dials again. “Hi? It’s-” And is hung up on immediately.

“Told ya’,” Keith groans.

“The- The Holts can do something, I mean, Sam’s a bioengineering expert- He can-“ He reasons, desperation tinging his words, tears streaking down rapidly. “You just- Just have to hold out a little longer-“

“‘m tired, Sh’ro.”

“Ha, yeah, me too buddy. It’s only- What? Noon?” Shiro chuckles weakly, wiping his tears and scooping his brother up in his arms in the same motion. Keith lets out a breathy laugh. “Just hang on a little brother- Longer, brother- Just- You get what I mean, I- I can get to Sam o-or Matt or someone-“

“Sh- Sh’ro, shhh.”

He sobs, clutching his brother closer to his chest. It’s kinda sad - he’s not the one who’s dying after all.

“‘m purple, Sh’ro,” Keith breathes out. “I shouldn’t be purple.”

“You’re Keith,” Shiro insists.

“Keith,” Keith agrees. “But purple.”

Shiro looks this time, and yeah. Keith’s turning purple. Totally normal, whatsoever, his eyes are turning yellow, glowing yellow, that’s definitely not normal- “You’re fine,” he insists. “You’re Keith and you’re fine.”

“It hurts,” Keith repeats. “Hurts.”

“You’re going to be fine,” Shiro repeats too, unsure whether he’s comforting himself or Keith. “You’re gonna be fine.”

There’s no response.

“Keith?” He asks, shaking his brother “C’mon…”

There’s a growl from the bundle in his arms, Shiro stumbles and drops him. “No no no nononono… Keith!”

But whatever it is, it’s not Keith anymore. The bundle unfurls itself, grins at Shiro (and oh god, it looks like Keith that’s Keith’s body he was too late he couldn’t save his little brother-) and lunges. On pure instinct from the years of self-defence classes, Shiro grabs the nearest item - a vase with a white orchid - and throws it at not-Keith. It strikes not-Keith on the head, and it collapses on the ground, unconscious and bleeding from the head.

Shiro sobs.

**Author's Note:**

> (Meanwhile, Haggar, several galaxies away: _”What do you mean the quintessence got shot into space? What do you mean you don’t know where it is anymore? Are you saying you **lost** it?!”_)
> 
> -
> 
> AU where the Kerberos Mission goes well, but the Galra still rule a majority of the known universe and the Alteans are still in cyropods. Keith lives and is not turned into a zombie because Galra genes. Shiro eventually loses his arm when he gets bitten and amputated within the same minute - Pidge and Hunk scrape together enough materials to make him a temporary prosthetic. The quintessence experiment (specifically, Galran DNA fused with concentrated quintessence and put in a rocket launcher) actually got shot into Earth’s sun. They find Blue and form Voltron eventually, but you know how Pidge had that whole "I gotta find my family" thing going on? Well, the entire team has this "How to: Cure Earth from the zombie apocalypse" thing going on. _(When they find out that the cause of Earth's issues is the Galra Empire's experiments... hahahah it's not pretty.)_


End file.
